


One Day I Shall Come Back

by ilwin



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:41:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilwin/pseuds/ilwin
Summary: The TARDIS brought the Doctor to Earth again. This time not because of the invasion but to meet someone from his past…
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	One Day I Shall Come Back

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Louise (on tumblr) for beta-read

The TARDIS materialized and the Doctor hurried to the data scanner to see where she had brought him this time, seeing as he’d set the course to random earlier.

“Year… place… Earth! Earth? Why Earth again, Sexy?”

He switched on the scanner’s monitor and it showed what seemed to be the middle of the city; with only buildings to be seen all around the TARDIS.

“Okay,” he patted the console thoughtfully. “You want me to see something here, right? So I shouldn’t just take off straight away, right? You just rely on my curiosity, don’t you? Because this looks completely ordinary… Some city, the middle of some civilized area, an advanced year of the human race…” He frowned a bit while circling the console pensively.

“I’d expect something more exciting than an earthly city,” he informed the time machine. “Of all times and places you pick this earthly city… Yes! I’m rather fond of this planet, that’s true, but this just looks… Hmm…” He stopped in front of the exit doors.

“Alright, I’ll take a look there, but only because of you,” he added, and automatically adjusted his bowtie.

It appeared that the time machine materialized on a back yard of the nearest building — high, quite modern looking at first sight, but when the Doctor looked more carefully, it looked a bit like bits of modern architecture that had been ruined and then partly repaired and partly rebuilt. Ancient and modern pieces together, more like a plant growing out of the ruins than a building just renewed or simply newly built.

“Interesting…” he said to himself and made few steps, meaning to leave the back yard, when a voice behind him said hard: “Stop! Who are you? How did you get here?”

The Doctor turned around and saw a man in some sort of uniform, staring at him suspiciously.

“Oh, hello,” the Doctor smiled and waved his hand, attempting a gesture that would indicate harmlessness. “I’m the Doctor.”

The man paused and then asked, almost like he was afraid that the answer wouldn’t be the one he would long to hear. “A doctor?”

The Doctor watched him doubtfully. “No… No, not “A”. “The”. The Doctor. That’s me. Hello.”

The man watched him reluctantly and then his gaze moved to the TARDIS nearby and his eyes widened. “Doctor… _The_ Doctor! You must come with me!” he shouted and gesticulated wildly.

The Doctor grinned evasively. “Actually… no. I think I’d rather go. I didn’t mean to land here anyway, so if you don’t mind…”

“No!” The man shouted out so loudly that the Doctor started. “You must go with me. It’s not much time left probably. Oh, what a day!” he added excitedly.

The Doctor didn’t know what make of it, but the man didn’t seem to be willing to explain anything; he just grinned happily and kept making gestures indicating he should follow.

The Doctor hesitated for a moment, but as usual, his curiosity won at the end and he just came after the man around the corner to some sort of side entrance of the building; most likely only for staff. After all, it was quite the nice change from the more common welcome on any place he had landed before, that usually involved weapons, capturing, questioning and imprisoning.

They entered what looked like a storage area but quickly went out into the corridor. The man was smiling contently as he rushed down the corridor and the Doctor followed him curiously, but confused and unsure about whether it wasn’t some kind of trap. Especially when they happened to not meet anyone during all the time.

Then he spotted the sign on the door that read “Operating Theatre” and waved his arms frantically. “Operating theatre. We’re in a hospital! No! No, no, not _that_ sort of doctor! Well, a bit sometimes… but mostly not. I’m the other kind of doctor. A scientist, and…”

The man interrupted him with a smile. “Yes, I know. I saw the blue box. Please, come on…”

The Doctor fell silent, following — now rather nervously — the man along the corridors. The blue box? Surely, he meant the TARDIS… So… They know me here? And… is it good or bad news…?

They took the lift to the third floor and the man led the Doctor to the centre of the corridor, where nurse’s room was.

With a short rushed knock on the door, the man directly opened it. “Mary, I brought the Doctor!” he blurted out excitedly, while the Doctor, more and more confused, peeked inside as well.

The nurse looked from the man to the Doctor and almost started to laugh. “This?” The Doctor, who was just about to say “hello”, stopped indecisively and his guide frowned. “But he is! I saw the blue box down in the backyard!”

The doubtful smile disappeared from the girl’s face in no time and she opened her mouth in amazement. “The blue box! Then it must be him!”

“Wait,” interrupted the Doctor, having just enough of confusion around him. “What exactly is going on?”

The nurse jumped on her feet and hurried to the doors. “Come on, _Doc-tor_ ,” she pronounced the name with obvious pleasure. “I’ll take you to Mrs. Campbell; she’ll be delighted to see you.” She exclaimed and almost ran out of the room.

“Mrs. Campbell? What… Wait! Why can’t anyone just tell me what’s going on?” the Doctor asked just out loud without addressing anyone in particular and then followed the nurse through the corridor.

The nurse stopped by one door and knocked gently. “Madam Campbell,” she addressed the person inside, voice overflowing with excitement. “I brought you a visitor.” She turned to the Doctor and nodded. “Just go inside, she’s awake.” She said and stepped aside for him to enter the room.

The Doctor walked in, somewhat carefully and still puzzled, and saw the old white-haired woman lying on a bed.

He stopped in shock and gasped. “Susan…” he finally whispered, when he had found his voice again. “Is that you?”

The old woman tried to focus on the young looking man in front of her and looked for the nurse. “Mary, who’s that? How does he know my name?”

The nurse smiled. “It’s the Doctor, Madam,” she claimed, guessing from the Doctor’s reaction it was really him. “Carl saw the blue box and brought the Doctor here.”

“The Doctor? Grandfather?” said the old woman quietly and tried to rise a bit on the bed.

The Doctor hurried up to her. “Susan… Susan, you… You’re… old,” he finished then, awkwardly, overwhelmed by feelings.

The nurse gently closed the door, leaving to give them privacy, but the two didn’t even notice she had gone.

Susan smiled and her face folded in hundreds of little lines. “And you look so young, grandfather… You regenerated.”

The Doctor smiled slightly and a little bit bitterly. “Many times since you last saw me…” He sat on a chair next to the bed and gently took her hands in his. For a while none of them spoke and they just looked at each other silently.

It was so long since they had seen one another for the last time, so many things happened to both of them, so many things would need to be said that suddenly nothing of the past was actually important and all that mattered was the present moment.

“What…” the Doctor broke the silence, but he had so many questions in his mind, that he actually didn’t know where to start and so he stopped. “How…” he tried again but failed as well, so just looked at her with a smile of apology.

Susan’s smile widened. “I was hoping I would see you once more before my death,” she said quietly.

The Doctor looked shocked. “No! You can’t die! You…”

Susan laughed and it sounded very much like young Susan travelling with her grandfather years ago. “Oh, grandfather… Look at me… I’m old now. I couldn’t regenerate, but I lived for a very long time, much longer than people of this planet do. And now it’s time for me to go.”

“But…” the Doctor protested. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Maybe if I…”

“Grandfather,” she interrupted him again and in the simple addressing, everything was put.

The Doctor fell silent.

Susan released one hand from his gentle grip and comfortingly covered his hand with hers. “I have lived for too long now,” she repeated and went on slowly. “I found a place to belong to and I lived and loved. I watched and helped the planet being rebuilt again. And I watched as all that I loved was fading and passing away. And I can’t go on anymore, it is my turn to fade and pass away now.”

The Doctor watched her without a word, silent tears rising into his eyes.

“I still hoped you would appear one day just as you said back then. I should have gone already long ago and I think only the hope, this waiting for you, was keeping me alive for the last few years. And now you’re here. It will be easy for me to go.”

The Doctor blinked few times to get tears out of his eyes, not wanting to release his hands from hers for the littlest moment.

“I… should have come earlier,” he said in a trembling voice.

“You came now,” replied Susan with understanding smile. “Did you fix the TARDIS? Does she go where you want her to?”

The Doctor nodded and then hesitated. “Well… mostly. She goes where I need to go,” he corrected himself and Susan slightly nodded.

“And the chameleon circuit?”

When facing big and overwhelming events, most of the species tend to focus on unimportant details instead of the main things and questions.

The Doctor grimaced a bit. “I tried to fix it few times but it didn’t work. Not really. Not properly. You heard them. The blue box,” he said and laughed shortly, trying to hide how he felt inside; meeting his little Susan old and dying.

Susan laughed too, but in much more relaxed way. “I always liked the blue box,” she said comfortingly. “I bet Mary ran out to see the TARDIS herself,” she added with warmth in her voice.

“But how do they know me? Did you tell them to look for the TARDIS?” the Doctor wondered.

Susan looked amused with his astonishment. “Everyone knows the Doctor — a man from the blue box, who helped to save planet Earth from the Daleks.”

“And his granddaughter Susan, who stayed on a planet with her love?” added the Doctor gently.

“Yes, me too,” she smiled. “Mary forced me to tell her the story over and over again. She is very proud that I’m her patient.”

The Doctor nodded but didn’t answer and there was a pause again when none of them spoke and were just looking at each other. Susan with happy smile full of relief and contentment, the Doctor with happiness and anxiety at once.

“You came alone?” asked Susan after a while and the Doctor nodded.

“Did you return Ian and Barbara home at the end?” she asked then, remembering two teachers that became unwilling adventurers when her grandfather had literally kidnapped them.

The Doctor nodded and it took him a moment until he could actually answer. “Yes. At the end. In fact, it was a Dalek ship, not the TARDIS that took them home. It was a risk, but they insisted. The two silly old fusspots,” he said with a warm tone in his voice.

“A Dalek ship?” Susan didn’t understand why Daleks would do such a thing, but the Doctor just cast his eyes down and didn’t answer, refusing to recount the memories and explain everything related to the departure of his first human companions. And friends.

“You miss them,” said Susan sympathetically in a low voice.

The Doctor looked at her and smiled slightly. “I miss all of them, Susan. I travelled with many and I miss all of them. I missed you a lot too, of course,” he replied and squeezed her hands lovingly. Then he looked at her carefully. “Were you happy? Didn’t you regret … didn’t you regret leaving Gallifrey sometimes?”

Susan slowly shook her head, just as much as lying on the bed and her weakness let her. “I was happy here. With David and all the people; busy and happy,” she answered and then in return, she looked at him with a careful look. “And you? Did you regret leaving Gallifrey some day? Have you been there again?”

The Doctor’s eyes slipped away again, before he answered. “Yes, I went to Gallifrey a few times lately. Not quite deliberately,” he looked back at her and hesitated but then decided to say nothing about events that led him to visit Gallifrey during some of his previous incarnations.

“Do you want to return there some day?” Susan asked and when the Doctor wasn’t answering, she frowned a bit and squeezed his hands little bit more. “Grandfather?”

The Doctor sighed slightly, his face wrinkled with a painful grimace. “Gallifrey is gone, Susan.”

She frowned even more. “Gone? I don’t understand… What do you mean — gone?”

The Doctor looked aside again and shrugged. “There was a big war. Big and devastating. And then I… I did something. And there were no more war. But no more Gallifrey either. It’s gone. There’s nowhere to return to,” he replied slowly.

Susan didn’t say anything, trying to understand what he just said.

The Doctor was watching her and felt like being put in a trial again. Only this one seemed to be much worse than the one caused by Valeyard. “I still don’t know if I did good or wrong. The Time Lords were… well, you know, Time Lords... But it was still the planet we came from and…” he was speaking hastily as he was trying to defend himself.

Susan gasped and smiled at him comfortingly. “You don’t need to apologize, grandfather. It was your choice and you did what you had to do.”

But the Doctor just shook his head and looked aside.

Another pause filled with silence followed.

The Doctor’s eyes were now wandering around the room, without actually noticing what he saw, lost in his not so happy thoughts, while Susan watched him, wondering how to make their last meeting more pleasant.

“Grandfather,” she addressed him and gently stroked his young looking face with her old and wrinkled hand. “Tell me something about your travels,” she asked when he finally turned his eyes to her.

He smiled bitterly. “Oh, there’s so much of it, Susan, I wouldn’t know where to start…”

“So tell me about others that travelled with you,” she said and added. “Please, just speak; I want to hear your voice. For one last time.”

The Doctor shivered, although the room was comfortably warm. He was looking at her without a word, trying to deal with thoughts and feelings that were mixing inside him. What to say at a moment like this? What should he talk about to her now?

Then he finally nodded shortly and started to talk.

It was rather shambolic running from one random memory to another, skipping from the story of rescuing Vicki to remembering Sgt. Benton’s coffee and Evelyn’s chocolate cakes. Then back to Steven Taylor’s stuffed panda named Hi-fi and again way forward to the Doctor’s first meeting with Donna Noble.

Sometimes he just stopped in the middle of his storytelling and went on to something completely different without explanation. But he knew it didn’t really matter and although Susan was listening carefully to what he was talking about, he still couldn’t tell everything that happened and mention everyone he met during those years, so it wasn’t important if he skipped something when he found out that the memory was too painful to speak about.

None of them noticed that nurse Mary carefully peeked inside the room a few times during the afternoon. They were both completely lost in the precious moments of their last meeting. And Mary knew she must not disturb this moment, so she acted very gently and quietly.

The day passed and the evening sun started to shine into the room.

Sunlight shone in the Doctor’s face and he grimaced. “Oh, look, it’s almost sunset, Susan. I was…” he stopped. Susan looked very calm and very silent, lying on the bed with her eyes closed.

He gasped and moved closer to her. “Susan?” But she couldn’t hear him anymore.

The Doctor jumped on his feet and rushed to the doors that he opened so hastily he almost hit Mary, who was just about to check on them again. “Quickly, help! She’s…” he blurted out, but stopped himself in the middle of the sentence and just flailed his arms nervously.

Mary’s smile immediately disappeared from her face and she hurried to the bed. She touched Susan’s forehead, then took her hand to check the pulse.

The Doctor was marching backward and forward around the room restlessly, but he already knew what Mary would say to him; the calling for help was just a hopeless shouting in the air.

Finally Mary stood up from the bed and turned to him with sadness in her face. “I’m sorry, Doctor. Mrs. Campbell is dead,” she said quietly and looked at the Doctor almost apologetically.

The Doctor couldn’t find the words at the moment and Mary noticed how that young face suddenly looked so much older.

“I must call the doctor now,” she said and hearing how it sounded in front of “the Doctor”, quickly added. “I mean our physician. You can stay here if you want. Or would you rather…?”

“No,” the Doctor finally found his voice and shook his head. “I’ll stay here, thank you,” he replied and turned once more to the bed.

When nurse Mary walked in the room few moments later with the physician of this ward, they found out the Doctor was already gone. Only by Susan’s left hand lay a red bowtie, gently tied around her wrist.

“She really waited just for him,” said Mary quietly. I shall miss the old lady…


End file.
